ROCK N' ROLL HERETIC Announced June 24 and 26 At Asylum @ McCadden Theatre

Jump on the tour bus and take a ride down the highway with Rory Tharpe. She'll be your rock 'n' roll hero.

By: May. 25, 2022
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ROCK N' ROLL HERETIC Announced June 24 and 26 At Asylum @ McCadden Theatre

Rock 'n' Roll Heretic., a road play and demi-musical world premiere engagement announced as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival at Asylum@ McCadden Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood, CA 90038.

Written, produced, and directed by Sikivu Hutchinson. Presented by Third Rail Alive.

Playing Friday, June 24, 2022 at 7:15 p.m. and Sunday, June 26 at 3:15 p.m.. Learn more at https://hollywoodfringe.org/projects/7400.

It's the late 1970s, and ex-Pentecostal Black queer female electric guitarist Rory Tharpe navigates the cutthroat world of corporate rock, dive bars, dusk-to-dawn recording sessions, and shady contracts as she travels the nation in a dilapidated tour bus with her bickering, boozing all-male band. Much-imitated and little-credited, Rory is in a late career tailspin when she goes on tour with international superstar Jude Justis, a white woman blues-rock singer who has built a turbulent mega-platinum career out of stealing from Black musicians. Broke and frustrated by the racism, sexism, and ageism of the rock boys' club, Rory warily joins forces with Jude. She then takes a detour through the painful past she shares with childhood nemesis Divinity Mason Mulvaney, a maverick pastor at the helm of the mega church enterprise Revivals, Inc.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the playwright and director. The recipient of a doctorate from New York University, she received the Harvard Humanist of the Year Award in 2020. Her previous plays include White Nights, Black Paradise (based on her novel); Grinning Skull; and Narcolepsy, Inc. The current play is adapted from her novel Rock 'n' Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe. Her non-fiction books include Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist and Heretical; Imagining Transit, Race, Gender and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles; ;and Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars. She is the founder of Black Skeptics Los Angeles, and the Women's Leadership Project, a Black feminist mentoring program for girls of color in South L.A.

Dr. Hutchinson's cast for Rock 'n' Roll Heretic includes (in alphabetical order) JC Cadena, Dina Cataldi, Brenda Eager, Patti Henley, Janine Lancaster, Phillip McNair, Ashlee Olivia, Darrell Philip, Alma Schofield and Philip Sokoloff.

Original music by the Distant Engines band, featuring acclaimed singer-songwriters Brenda Eager and Patti Henley.

Jump on the tour bus and take a ride down the highway with Rory Tharpe. She'll be your rock 'n' roll hero.



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